e shot, Henry."

"How can she live in the Gap," mused de Spain, "with an outfit like
that?"

"Got nowhere else to live, I guess. I believe you'd better change your
mind, Henry, and stay with us."

"No," returned de Spain meditatively, "I'm not going to stay. I've had
glory enough out of this town for a while." He picked up his hat and
put it on. Lefever thought it well to make no response. He was charged
with the maintenance and operation of the stage-line arsenal at Sleepy
Cat, and spent many of his idle moments toying with the firearms. He
busied himself now with the mechanism of a huge revolver--one that the
stage-driver, Frank Elpaso, had wrecked on the head of a troublesome
negro coming in from the mines. De Spain in turn took off his hat,
poked the crown discontentedly, and, rising with a loss of amiability
in his features and manner, walked out of the room.

The late sun was streaming down the full length of Main Street. The
street was still filled with loiterers who had spent the day at the
fair, and lingered now in town in the vague hope of seeing a brawl or
a fight before sundown--cattlemen and cowboys from the northern
ranges, sheepmen from the Spider River country, small ranchers and
irrigators from the Bear basin, who picked their steps carefully, and
spoke with prudence in the presence of roisterers from the Spanish
Sinks, and gunmen and gamblers from Calabasas and Morgan's Gap. The
Morgans themselves and their following were out to the last
retainer.

CHAPTER II

THE THIEF RIVER STAGE LINE

Sleepy Cat has little to distinguish it in its casual appearance from
the ordinary mountain railroad town of the western Rockies. The long,
handsome railroad station, the eating-house, and the various
division-headquarters buildings characteristic of such towns are in
Sleepy Cat built of local granite. The yard facilities, shops, and
roundhouses are the last word in modern railroad construction, and the
division has not infrequently held the medal for safety records.

But more than these things go toward making up the real Sleepy Cat. It
is a community with earlier-than-railroad traditions. Sleepy Cat has
been more or less of a settlement almost since the day of Jim Bridger,
and its isolated position in the midst of a country of vast deserts,
far mountain ranges, and widely separated watercourses has made it
from the earliest Western days a rendezvous for hunters, trappers,
emigrants, prospectors, an